


never known a girl like you before

by ImNotStubborn



Category: Person of Interest (TV), The Mentalist
Genre: Crossover Pairing, it's a great crack ship name shut up, lisboot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:34:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25920646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImNotStubborn/pseuds/ImNotStubborn
Summary: Teenage Lisbon meets teenage Root. Briefly.
Relationships: Teresa Lisbon & Root | Samantha Groves
Kudos: 1





	never known a girl like you before

As the blue afternoon sky slowly transitioned into an evening orange, the last few people who had visited the Lisbons' garden sale started leaving.

“That was time well spent,” Greg mumbled to himself as he counted the ridiculously thin amount of money they'd gained from an entire day spent burning under the summer sun, hoping this sorry event would somehow help his fiancé's family fund.

He turned his frown into a more neutral mask when he saw Teresa coming back from a zillionth goodbye to a neighbor she'd probably never even talked to before today, knowing by a simple look at her own closed off face that she was in no mood to handle any more of what she'd read as pity for the foreseeable future.

“Hey,” she said, lips turning upwards in the slightest when she laid eyes on him.

It didn't go unnoticed by either of them that she stood a bit too far away from him while she looked around them with a frown, but Greg was becoming used to the distance she put between them. Besides, even when they'd started dating two years ago, shortly after her father had died, it's not like she'd ever been the open, affectionate type. 

“You look worried. Wondering where that smelly rebellious pack you consider family ran off to this time?” he playfully asked.

As he'd hoped, that finally got a real smile out of Teresa, and she punched his shoulder lightly for insulting the remaining Lisbons.

“Well, if I know any of them, Tommy's out there trying to convince his buddies that he's one of the tough guys, and Stan and Jimmy probably sneaked in at some point to go and play with the video game I confiscated from them yesterday… after they convinced you to cover for them, I'm guessing?”

Greg scratched his head and felt his face reddening slightly, as always whenever Teresa caught him doing something he shouldn't have -which to be fair, didn't happen that often.

“Right, look, they came up to me and complained that all of this stuff,” he gestured around them at the remnants of the sale, “was bringing up bad memories, and so they wanted an out. They never mentioned you'd grounded them though. Want me to go get them?”

Teresa smiled and shook her head as she, too, took in the pathetic possessions they had left from this day. There hadn't been much of anything with actual monetary value to sell, anyway.

“Nah, it's okay. It's not like there was so much activity that I actually needed their help,” she half-joked, pointing at the small pile of cash Greg had been counting minutes before. “They really tricked you good though, you know?” she continued, and he frowned. “All of this supposedly 'emotionally heavy' stuff? It got moved up to the attic years before any of them was old enough to walk, let alone remember it.”

Greg laughed out loud and Teresa joined in, though less enthusiastically.

She didn't mind the prank itself, as much as she did the irony in it. Because even if she didn't have any connection to those items either, she'd been the one to look for them in their home. And she couldn't stop thinking that the reason she'd had to get as far as up in the attic to find anything intact, was that anything valuable that had been elsewhere in the house had been destroyed ages ago by her father –on the nights he chose to take his anger out on inanimate objects rather than the worse alternative.

But Greg and her had never discussed that aspect of her childhood, though she knew he must have heard some things around town, and figured out the rest from spending time here in the last couple of years. Still, it wasn't the kind of things she liked to dwell on, even with him.

She got rid of him right after they tidied up the garden -with an awkwardly chaste kiss- hating herself a little bit for phrasing it that way in her own head when he'd actually been really sweet to come and help today. It wasn't his fault that most people only came around out of curiosity over the Tragic Lisbons finally opening up to the neighborhood, and with no intention to spend even a dollar to help them out.

One more pitiful look about it thrown her way though, and she might lose her temper. Not for the first time recently, she thought about what it would be like to live somewhere else, somewhere far from here. To be a stranger in a bigger city, to have no one know her name or recognize her face from a pathetic article in the local paper a decade ago, to be free not to mention her family and simply live her own life miles and miles from it all.

She closed the front door and sighed, locking those thoughts away. As appealing as they were, they were even more pointless when her realistic future only consisted of Greg and her brothers, who would all need her here.

A loud commotion upstairs startled her, before she recognized Stan and Jimmy's voices engaged in yet another fight over commands, mixed in with grave accusations of cheating that would inevitably lead to some deeply unbalanced -considering Stanley's physical advantage- wrestling. She could go and catch them both disobeying right now, could even call Tommy's number and give him an earful with his self-proclaimed badass friends around to hear it. It would serve them right after she'd had to do most of the day's work on her own.

Except even though they'd lied about their reason to avoid it, she couldn't blame them for wanting to bail on the whole thing. It was annoying enough having to deal with nosy strangers who thought they were entitled to her family's most sordid and ugly secrets and asked her incredibly rude and private questions all afternoon; she didn't know how she would have handled her anger at seeing any of those vultures trying to pry information from one of her brothers.

They'd get a break for now, but they'd definitely hear about it later this weekend, she decided as she stood up properly.

Checking the watch on her wrist and seeing it was already past eight, she moved towards the kitchen, hoping there were enough leftovers in the refrigerator that she wouldn't have to actually cook something –not that she hated it, but it was insane how time and energy-consuming it could get when you were the only one around doing it. Though to be fair, Jimmy had seemed to take an interest into cooking lately… maybe she could use that to her advantage soon.

Inches away from the ajar door, she stopped cold as she heard clatter from inside the small room, her left hand freezing before it could reach the doorknob.

Her hope that it might only be Tommy returning home early and trying to steal an early snack vanished the minute she noticed footprints on the light yellow tiles. Because as used as she'd gotten to surprises from the biggest troublemaker of her three brothers, up until now, she'd never had the impression that high heels were Thomas Lisbon's style.

Heart beating faster and faster as she realized the prints, as well as the drops next to them that her eyes were now glued to, looked a little too red and liquid to be dirt, she extended her arm towards the living room table and caught the letter opener she knew lay around there. Then she took a short, quiet breath, and gently pushed on the frame to discreetly reveal the intruder.

The ridiculously loud creak the door let out as it opened ruined any element of surprise she'd hoped to have on the tall, pretty brunette whose head snapped into her direction immediately.

The doe-eyed girl, one hand holding the fridge handle and the other clutching her left side, at least had the decency to look flustured, maybe even a little scared. Until she let her glance fall on Teresa's not so intimidating weapon, and a delightfully musical, yet decidedly condescending laugh filled the tensed silence.

“And what were you planning to do with this, sweetheart?” she asked in a low voice, though it seemed strained more with fatigue than years of maturity. "Threaten me with splinters?”

Pushing through the embarrassment she couldn't help but feel at her futile choice of a tool, Teresa focused on the situation at hand and used her analytical mind to assess the stranger, and was surprised by the sharp contrast between the girl's playful tone or her daringly raised eyebrows, and her overall appearance.

Her make up allowed her to pass for older, but Teresa guessed that she was younger than herself, although probably not by much. She was definitely pretty, but she looked a little too pale and thin in her dark clothing, almost frail, and the knucle-white grip she had on the fridge's door handle made it look like it was the only thing keeping her upright. She might have been at ease on heels in other circumstances, but right now her legs were almost visibly shaking, and there was a small but getting larger dark red stain pooling around her worn down boots. Finally and more to the point, she didn't appear to be carrying a weapon herself.

Reassured that she looked more hurt and famished –if the side looks she couldn't stop herself from throwing at the fridge were any indication– than actually dangerous, Teresa put the wooden knife away. And, unamused by the childish provocation she was used to as the older sibling in this house, she crossed her arms and took her time before speaking.

“Who are you?” she eventually asked, proud that the stern and authoritarian voice she'd been practising a lot these past years didn't fail her.

After all, as young and troubled as the girl seemed, she was still reckless enough to break into someone's house and act nonchalant about it. A voice in her head that sounded an awful lot like her late mother's pointed out that she was, most importantly, hurt and needed care more than a suspicious interrogation at the moment. Teresa decided to ignore it.

The thief's smile only grew at the unimpressed tone thrown her way and she lifted her chin, challenging. Then she let her eyes travel up and down Teresa's body for a long minute before she closed the fridge and turned to face her properly, a glint of a whole other kind of hunger in her eyes.

“Well, darlin',” she replied, so unexpectedly charmingly that Teresa's cheeks grew hot suddenly, “you can just call me Root.”

She took a couple of steps, batting her long eyelashes a little too quickly, and held out her hand to shake Teresa's. But, right as the oldest Lisbon was about to react –in which manner, she wasn't sure yet– the bright, flirty grin fell completely off of the stranger's face.

And then she passed out on the floor.


End file.
